The Bog Bodies of Europe

schwit1 writes: It's a regular occurrence in Europe for dead bodies to be found in peat bogs. The bogs preserve the bodies, providing scientists a window into the past. However, many of the bodies exhibit one mysterious tendency: violent death. "Since the 18th century, the peat bogs of Northern Europe have yielded hundreds of human corpses dating from as far back as 8,000 B.C. Like Tollund Man, many of these so-called bog bodies are exquisitely preserved-their skin, intestines, internal organs, nails, hair, and even the contents of their stomachs and some of their clothes left in remarkable condition. Despite their great diversity-they comprise men and women, adults and children, kings and commoners-a surprising number seem to have been violently dispatched and deliberately placed in bogs, leading some experts to conclude that the bogs served as mass graves for offed outcasts and religious sacrifices. Tollund Man, for example, had evidently been hanged." It's a fascinating combination of history, archeology, and forensics.

Comments

Funny, I do the same thing with my backup tapes

[sinij]

Funny, I do the same thing with my backup tapes. I store them in the bog.

Hunter-Gather Homicides

[Anonymous Coward]

The murder rate in hunter-gatherer societies is known to be rather high. (They don't have police, after all.) In his book The World Until Yesterday, Jared Diamond states that the per-capita murder rate for the !Kung people is three times the rate in the United States, and 30 times the rate of countries such as Canada, the UK, and Germany.

It was just a violent time

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The stone age tribes that survived without contact into 20th century were are very violent. The Kalahari bushmen, the Fore people of the Papua New Guinea, and the ones from Brazil were all very very violent. The New Guinea highlanders had routine chronic war. The casuality rate is not as high as the battles of civil war or WW I and II. But warfare week after week after week takes its toll, and an obscenely large fraction of the population died due to wars.

So it was just a very violent time. The article asks the question but does not even begin to answer it.

Re:It was just a violent time

[Tailhook]

Now now. You know better than that.

Violence is unique to modern times, caused primarily by guns, white racists and cops. If it weren't for corporations, Christian fundies and global warming the world would be at peace, just as it was before the advent of all these inhumane capitalist ideas.

Re:It was just a violent time

[Camel Pilot]

We can look at archaeological artifacts (ie Otzi, Kenniwick Man,Cave 7 in Utah, Herxheim village, etc) and also we can look at early contact histories. For example read Samuel Hearne's diary and prepared to be horrified at the violent nature of just post-prehistoric human cultures.

Re:It was just a violent time

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

In the modern era, almost all the productive lands have been taken up by the farmers, and the next quality lands were are taken by the grazers. All productive sea shores and rivers were also taken by sedentary fishing tribes. So yes it is incorrect to draw lessons from most of the stone age hunter gathers.

But the New Guinea high lands were isolated, and it is quite a productive land. They were stone age people, but had domesticated pigs and chicken, had agriculture and were quite large in population. They had fragmented into some 6000 tribes, each with its own language and perpetual warface with the neighbors. So it would be correct to draw lessons from Papua New Guinean highlanders. And they were unquestionably violent.

Re:It was just a violent time

[AthanasiusKircher]

So it was just a very violent time. The article asks the question but does not even begin to answer it.

Precisely. Despite modern fears about violent crime, etc., just about every historical attempt to estimate violent crime and violent deaths over the centuries has concluded that modern violence happens at a rate FAR LESS than the past.

The summary mentions:

a surprising number seem to have been violently dispatched and deliberately placed in bogs, leading some experts to conclude that the bogs served as mass graves for offed outcasts and religious sacrifices.

Yeah... maybe... maybe not. It could just be that the number isn't as "surprising" as it seems. Most people tend to know about the past through narratives written by the upper classes usually about the upper classes, i.e., people who generally tried to present themselves and their people as "civilized." But the majority of people were in the lower classes in the past (mostly unrecorded) and led lives that would be considered horrific to modern people, including high rates of violence.

Re:It was just a violent time

[AthanasiusKircher]

So, life MIGHT have been very violent back then, but you can't just collect data from modern-day "primitive tribes" and extrapolate because your assumptions might not be valid.

Absolutely true. But then we have these people called "historians" who have this knack for looking at actual written records of the past.

And -- well, at least for just about all of written history, it's pretty clear that things were a heck of a lot more violent in most societies than they are today. Many people love these myths and nostalgia for some "golden age" of the past where men were knights in shining armor paying homage and respect to sweet maidens.

The reality for most peasants (and even many noblemen) was nothing like that -- violent crime from murder to rape was many times anything seen in modern societies.

Re:Remember to KISS

[Carewolf]

Keep it simple stupid.

Violent deaths found in peat bogs. Guess what the easiest way to murder someone is to lure them to a swamp, bog, other dArk remote area and kill them there. It makes great dumping grounds.

It is a universal truth. Like prostituion, thievery, and taxes.

But to then feed them shrooms, hang them, and then carefully place them in a ritual position, before throwing them in?

Re:Viking wankers

[twotacocombo]

The Viking Age didn't begin until roughly 800AD. These "wankers" were not vikings in any sense of the word.

Hudson

[WoodburyMan]

In 2,000 years historians and archaeologists will be scratching their head wondering why there were so many "Ritual Sacrifices" of cement shoe'd people at what is now the bottom of the Hudson..

Much Inaccuracy

[Toad-san]

Be sure to read this NatGeo article which corrects some of the misconceptions and mistakes history passed on to the first linked article:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic....

Re:Hanged in 8,000 B.C.

[AthanasiusKircher]

It's still a little anachronistic. It's not as direct as a knife in the chest or an axe across the neck. With little in terms of civilization, hanging seems anachronistic.

First off, "little in terms of civilization" is a very relative thing. Northern European tribes during this period may not have been Rome, but they had complex metalworking and tools and a very developed culture.

Death in many societies is very ritualized, particularly if deliberate. Even so-called "primitive" societies often have very complex religious rituals in general. Assuming this death was deliberate (as most hangings are), why would anyone assume that it would have to be "as direct as a knife in the chest or an axe across the neck"? If they had metal tools to do those things, they had a society advanced enough to have all sorts of complex ritualistic behavior -- which, to put it another way, is behavior that's not strictly "necessary" or efficient, but serves important cultural purposes.

evidence

[eyenot]

It's probably because unlike open water, bodies don't resurface in bogs. The heavy vegetable matter, debris, muds and so on hold the bodies down so they don't get noticed later on.

Re:Scotch?

[Farmer Tim]

Laphroaig is people!!!

Re:Hanged in 8,000 B.C.

[r1348]

It's not as anachronistic as the Grauballe Man, who apparently ate corn porridge between 290B.C. and 310 A.D.. In Europe. Corn.

Re:Hanged in 8,000 B.C.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not as anachronistic as the Grauballe Man, who apparently ate corn porridge between 290B.C. and 310 A.D.. In Europe. Corn.

Europeans would refer to what Americans improperly call "corn" as maize (hint: it was "Indian corn" at first). Europeans use the term "corn" to mean almost any grain-based foodstuff, like barley, oats, rye, wheat, and suchlike.